


Thank You for Waking Me Up

by MarvelousMenagerie (HiddenOne)



Series: 2020 Tony Stark Bingo [18]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Anime, Demons, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Spirit World, Yu Yu Hakusho AU - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24807376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiddenOne/pseuds/MarvelousMenagerie
Summary: Tony almost died. Well, he did die and then was brought back to life, but that was supposed to be a secret. He wants to go back to his college life at MIT and designing robots with Rhodey, but his second chance at life means that he has the Grim Reaper who goes by the name of Phil Coulson trying to train him to save the world.He's probably not meant to flirt with the demons he's supposed to be catching.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Series: 2020 Tony Stark Bingo [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1598911
Comments: 28
Kudos: 51
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Tony Stark Bingo square K1 - MIT Years  
> Creator # - 3036
> 
> This is a Yu Yu Hakusho AU, but you don't have to be familiar with it to follow along (though I do recommend)! The title comes from the opening theme Smile Bomb by Mawatari Matsuko. Also, this is very light on the shipping and Bucky won't show up for awhile, for full disclosure, but it's my fic so I'm going to have them flirt like crazy when he shows up.

Tony felt the vibration in his pocket. He bit his lip, already knowing what that meant. 

“Go on, I’ll catch up,” he told Rhodey as his hand went to his pocket. “I’ve - got a thing.”

Rhodey frowned, and his gaze went pointedly to where Tony’s hand was hidden. 

“Sure, you will. You know Pym will flip if you skip. Again.”

“I’m not skipping.” Tony rolled his eyes, even as he fiddled with the communicator in his pocket. “I’ll just be a second.”

Rhodey shook his head. “Will you just tell me what’s going on already? You’ve got a pager from like, the nineties and you’ve been disappearing ever since you…” he trailed off with a wince. 

“Almost died?” Tony filled in, voice light. 

“Yeah,” Rhodey said quietly, his eyes sad.

The truth was, Tony had died. Heart stopped, completely dead, no resuscitation. Coming back to life wasn’t a thing that people were supposed to realize could happen though, so Tony tried to play it off as he’d only been mostly dead.

Even if his parents had already started planning the funeral. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Tony tried to brush off. “I just -”

“-have a thing,” Rhodey finished for him. 

Tony needed to come up with actual excuses, but he hated lying to Rhodey. And he couldn’t tell Rhodey about this. 

“Save me a seat!” Tony called out and dashed away before Rhodey could say anything more. 

Tony dashed across the lawn, dodging students as he went. He hoped this didn’t take long. He’d have to rush if he was going to make it back to class in time. He pulled the communicator out of his pocket and double checked the meet point, but it was set exactly where he expected. 

Tony cut across the lanes of traffic, just making it across the road before the lights changed.

He found Coulson waiting by the fence, watching ducks swim on the Charles River. 

“I have class, you know.”

“In a few minutes. This is, unfortunately, urgent.” Coulson handed Tony a file folder. “And I have my own schedule to keep.”

Tony sighed but opened it. The first page had a picture of a green ball thing, the second was about a mirror, and the third a sword. Tony raised an eyebrow. 

“Are you going to give these to me, or something?”

“Three demons broke into our vault and stole these items of power.” Coulson’s voice was quiet and serious, and Tony’s stomach churned to hear it. 

Coulson had been the one who steered Tony through the whole process of dying and being back to life with an unflappable calm, even in the wake of Tony’s arguments, freakouts, and panic attacks. He’d thought nothing could scare Coulson.

“It’s imperative that we get these back as quickly as possible. We’re researching who took them, but it falls to you to find them and retrieve them for us.”

“I have class,” Tony repeated.

“This is the fate of the human world.” Coulson sighed. “And if I could send anyone else, I would. Unfortunately, you are all we have available.”

“Ouch?”

Tony felt the sting of rejection like a prickle up his spine. He should be used to it, given how many times Howard had thrown words just like that at him before. Besides, he really was unprepared for this whole Spirit Detective gig that he’d gotten saddled with in exchange for his second chance at life. 

Not that Tony regretted taking the offer to return to the land of the living, but ignorance had been bliss. Demons not only existed but sometimes were able to escape from their world into the human one, and Tony was now one soldier in the battle to prevent that from happening. Or a detective, apparently, because he was ‘solving mysteries’ but really Tony felt more like a cop. 

He’d caught one tiny imp demon who’d possessed a student and had been setting fires in the chem labs, but that had been practically an accident rather than due to any skill of Tony’s. Tony was still new at this - and Coulson kept telling him that. 

Now, Tony was looking over his second case file and it was the fate of the world. 

“Don’t get ahead of yourself on this one,” Coulson said. “It’s more dangerous than you realize.”

“Aw, Coulson, if I didn’t know any better I’d say you cared.”

Still, Tony’s heart sunk. 

He had class. He had Pym’s class on nanotechnology, and he actually liked it. He wanted Professor Pym to like him too and maybe compete for that summer internship, but there was no chance of that if Tony kept missing lectures for inexplicable reasons. Especially since Pym already thought Tony was too full of himself because he was a Stark.

And Tony couldn’t go around saying that he was saving the human race from - he flipped open the file again - the ‘Forlorn Mirror’ because everyone would rightly ask him what the fuck?

He was just a college student. He attended MIT, which wasn’t a cakewalk even if he did have patents for weapons design in his name by the time he was ten. He had so much to learn, and so much he wanted to learn, and he wanted to hang out with Rhodey and eat pizza and come up with crazy robots to build in his dorm at three a.m and be a college student.

But he’d died, and to stay alive he’d sworn to help protect humans from those which wanted to harm them. Which apparently seemed to mean him dying again. 

Well, he’d gotten a solid week out of the deal. Hopefully his parents still had those funeral plans handy. 

“If there was anyone else, I would use them.” Coulson said with a grimace. “Director Fury believes you’re capable.”

Tony snorted. “I don’t.” 

“That’s not up to you.” Coulson gave him a little grin. 

Tony had to admit that Coulson wasn’t, all together, too bad. The man - spirit, really, but he looked like a man - hadn’t been Tony’s idea of the Grim Reaper, but apparently Coulson’s main job was to ferry souls to the Spirit World. 

Coulson was the one who had found Tony lingering and brought him to Fury - the King of Hell, and Tony had met the King of the Hell how crazy was that - for final judgement, and Coulson had been the one to offer up a solution of making Tony a Spirit Detective when Fury hadn’t known what to do with Tony. Tony wasn’t sure that gratitude was the right emotion, but he could probably have worse handlers. 

Or whatever Coulson was to him now. 

“What, you think I _can_ do this?” Tony asked as he stuffed the file in his backpack. “Doesn’t sound like you think I’m capable either.”

“I think you can do this if you aren’t as recklessly stupid as usual,” Coulson said blandly. “Like jumping in front of cars.”

“There was a puppy -”

“Get to class,” Coulson said, and then vanished in thin air. 

Tony huffed. That trick of Coulson’s meant he always got the last word in. 

Tony checked his watch, saw his class was just starting, and raced back across the traffic. He didn’t wait for the light to turn, instead dodging around cars, and realized that maybe Coulson had a point. 

Well, Tony couldn’t die until he’d collected three items and saved the human race, or whatever. 

But first, he had to make it through Pym’s lecture. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Tony Stark Bingo adopted square - Anime AU  
> Creator # 3036

“I see you’re dedicated to saving your world.”

Tony startled, knocking his book and pen to the floor and only just managing to save his laptop from the same fate.

“What the hell?” Tony hissed through clenched teeth. “My roommate will be back in -”

“I’m aware,” Coulson said as he looked around Tony’s dorm room. 

There wasn’t much to impress. It was small and cramped, and the most Tony could say was at least his dirty clothes made it into the hamper, even if it was starting to overflow. 

That’s where Rhodey was now, down in the basement doing his laundry to solve his own overflow issue.

“I take it you’ve had no luck in hunting down any of the artifacts?” Coulson asked, his gaze returning to Tony. 

Tony shrugged. “What, you think I’m going to find them on campus or something? No, I haven’t had ‘any luck,’ but you’ve given me, like, not even two days and I have a lab report due tomorrow so -”

“I don’t think I can overstate how much the state of your human world rests on you finding these items.”

“‘Your human world,’ wow that is so condescending.” Tony shook his head. “Maybe you could go ahead and find those artifacts, huh, since you don’t seem to have anything else to do -”

“Mr. Stark -”

“Ugh,” Tony twitched. “Don’t call me that, I told you to call me Tony -”

“Tony.” Coulson sighed. “You have a week to get this done.”

“A week?” Tony made a show of looking at his Google calendar, which was actually Rhodey’s shared calendar because Rhodey was awesome like that. It held the classes and due dates for assignments, and there were a lot of boxes and exclamation points in the next week. “Sorry, I’m about full up here. Maybe we could try for next Wednesday.”

Coulson wasn’t fazed. 

“If you’re going to have a chance against these demons, there’s a trick I need you to show. Or, more of a weapon, really.”

Tony was curious despite himself. “A weapon?”

“I can’t show you in your dorm room. It would be best if we stepped outside.” 

Coulson turned and opened the door to the hallway, gesturing to Tony. 

Tony sighed. He supposed that was better than Rhodey coming back and finding Tony chatting with some random middle-aged white guy in their room. That would certainly require an explanation. 

Tony grabbed his keys, put on his shoes, and left his dorm room. He didn’t lock the door since Rhodey might not have his keys and Tony wasn’t the best roommate but he wasn’t going to lock his best friend out on purpose.

“This way,” Tony grumbled as he led Coulson toward the exit. 

Tony winced as they passed a group of guys in the hall, but no one so much as glanced at Coulson. 

“Can anyone else see you?” Tony whispered. 

“Not right now, no. I thought that would be best, unless you would like to create a spectacle?” 

Tony rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

When they were outside the dorm, Coulson took the lead. He headed toward the street where there was a cherry red 1962 Chevrolet Corvette parked on the side of the road. 

Tony whistled.

“Get in,” Coulson said as he got into the driver’s seat. “What I’m about to show you should be done without an audience.”

Tony thought for a moment about refusing. He still had that report to finish. He had sixteen other assignments due very soon, including a test, according to Rhodey’s calendar. 

And apparently the world was penciled in for a disaster that only Tony could prevent. 

Tony sighed and got in the car. 

Coulson crossed the Charles River and turned onto the Massachusetts Turnpike. Tony couldn’t even enjoy the ride because he got a text from Rhodey, asking where he’d gone. 

Tony considered his possible answers. He didn’t know where he was going. He’d been kidnapped by the Grim Reaper. He was in a classic corvette on the turnpike. 

He put his phone back in his pocket without replying.

“Are we there yet?” Tony asked, aiming for being as obnoxious as possible. 

Coulson didn’t even look fazed. “I didn’t think you were the type to ask stupid questions.”

“I like to keep your expectations low.”

“Oh, there’s no issue with that.” 

“Ha, ha,” Tony commented dryly even as he felt a prickle of annoyance skitter across his skin. 

It wasn’t like anyone was being forthcoming with information about what Tony was supposed to do or how he was supposed to go about doing it. Was he just supposed to randomly come across demons and see that they had the items they’d stolen? What was even the chance they’d be in Boston of all places? 

Maybe Coulson and the rest of them should go find other, better Spirit Detectives or whatever since Tony wasn’t even trained to do anything. 

It took Tony a moment to realize that his view of the city was changing. His vantage point was getting higher, and he was able to see the tops of the cars next to him and then down into the streets beyond and - they were rising. 

He gripped the car door and leaned over. There was nothing underneath the car holding it up. They were still moving forward, just now above the road instead of on it. 

It was a flying car. 

Tony swallowed his first incredulous exclamation, then his second. Coulson was too cool, and probably wanted to see how Tony reacted. 

“You couldn’t have done that earlier and gotten us out of the traffic?” Tony finally landed on. 

“Less fun that way.” Coulson tossed him a little grin.

“This is, like, a Spirit Detective car, right? I get one of these once you train me up?” Tony asked, wincing at how eager he sounded. “I think this is exactly what I need to chase down those demons.”

“I appreciate your sudden enthusiasm for the mission,” Coulson said. “But no, Lola is one of a kind, and she’s mine.”

Tony smirked at knowing that Coulson was the kind of person that named his car. It made Tony like him a little bit more, even. Then he had a sudden chilling thought. 

“You don’t keep souls in the trunk or something, do you?”

“Would you like to crawl back and check?”

Coulson’s face was amused, but that told Tony nothing. 

Tony eyed him in challenge. He really didn’t want to reach back and open the trunk, but he also didn’t want to give Coulson the impression he was afraid. 

Tony reached back. 

Coulson slapped his arm down. “No, I don’t ferry souls in Lola’s trunk. At least not right now.”

“Sure,” Tony said, and slumped in his seat. He wasn’t sure he trusted Coulson’s answer. “Now can you tell me where we’re going?”

It was a warm night, but the breeze from Coulson’s driving had Tony rubbing his arms. He wished he’d grabbed a sweatshirt or something, but he hadn’t expected to be riding in a flying Corvette. 

He also hadn’t anticipated leaving Boston entirely when Coulson asked him to simply ‘step outside,’ but that’s all Tony could make of their direction. 

“Some place with a little privacy.” 

Tony sighed and checked his phone again. No service. Tony wondered if that was an effect of the flying in mid-air, or some side-effect of Coulson turning them invisible since people weren’t screaming about a flying car. 

Eventually, after Tony was thoroughly chilled, Coulson directed them down into a gentle descent. 

Tony had lost track of where they were, other than almost an hour out of the city Coulson had finally turned off the turnpike. There were few lights though, and Coulson was headed toward a large dark patch. 

“You know, when you said to step outside I didn’t realize you were going to trap me outside Boston,” Tony said as the dark patch got closer and closer. 

He wondered if there were demons waiting down there, in the dark. Tony’s skin prickled at the possible trial by fire. He’d never even seen a demon before - not unless they really did have bright red skin, horns out of their heads, and a long forked tail like the cartoons. How was he going to capture them? 

“I will of course take you back,” Coulson said. 

If there was anything left of him, Tony thought darkly. But still, a small part of him was relieved. Coulson gave off trustworthy vibes, though of course he probably did that with intention and so Tony couldn’t trust that - 

“You’re still buckled up, right?” Coulson asked.

Tony yelped as Coulson went into a deeper dive without waiting for an answer, and Tony was forced back against the seat. He gripped the seatbelt across his chest and fought not to close his eyes. He wasn’t afraid, he wasn’t afraid, he wasn’t afraid, even as the ground came closer and closer and closer and - 

Coulson jerked them upright right at the last moment, and Tony blinked his eyes open to find they were back on the road at a mediocre thirty miles an hour. 

There’d barely been an impact to feel, though Tony’s racing pulse told him that a crash had been imminent. 

“Landings are my favorite part.” Coulson smiled.

“Of course they are,” Tony forced out through his tight throat. 

“Well, we’re finally here. Welcome to Purgatory.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Purgatory is real? You’ve got to be kidding me. Catholicism is -” 

Coulson cleared his throat and pointed to a sign. A solitary light tried its best to illuminate the whole billboard in the dark, and it was good enough for Tony to make out the words Purgatory Chasm State Reservation. 

“The name perhaps owes its origins to the Catholics, I don’t actually know, but for our purposes the name has no relevance. It’s just a quiet place where we can have privacy for your training.”

“A state park? At dark. We aren’t burying any bodies, are we?”

“Not unless you have different plans for tonight than I do.”

Tony couldn’t hold back the laugh. 

He expected some sort of secret passageway, or a hidden road, or something quiet. Instead, Coulson pulled up into the parking lot and turned off the engine. 

“Shall we?” 

Tony sighed and opened the car door. The temperature had dropped with the sun, and he shivered as a breeze picked up. He climbed out onto the parking lot and looked around for what happened next. What could top a flying car?

But Coulson only led the way into the park. Tony followed, with pine needles crunching under his feet as they moved from the paved parking lot to the dirt of the trail. 

“The actual chasm is back that way,” Coulson explained, gesturing behind him. “It’s a very interesting historical piece, if you’re interested in geology.”

“Is it.”

“Yes,” Coulson said, perfectly agreeable. “But for today, we’re interested in a clearing that’s just beyond this playground.”

Tony wondered what Coulson’s version of ‘just beyond’ was. The man was still in a full on suit and tie, but Tony wouldn’t put it past Coulson to hike in the woods that way just for fun. Tony was the one unprepared for a hike, even if he was at least in jeans and sneakers. He shivered again as the wind blew through the trees. 

The playground was eerie, silent and lit up in the moonlight. Tony couldn’t stop imagining what lurked just beyond his view - now that he had both normal animals and supernatural things to worry about.

“Are we meeting any… _things_ at this clearing?”

“Not according to my plan.” 

Tony sighed in exasperation. 

They made it to the clearing. Or at least, Coulson finally stopped when they hit an empty space surrounded by trees. Tony talked himself through the logic again that if Coulson meant to kill him, Fury wouldn’t have given Tony this second chance. 

Of course, his second chance was about to end when they threw him in front of a pack of demons to capture, but the extra few weeks with Rhodey and living his college life have been nice. 

“Now, for your training.”

“I don’t have to call you sensei, do I?”

“Preferably not.” Coulson straightened his jacket, though there wasn’t much to straighten even after a walk through the woods. It was remarkable how put together he could be under every condition. “Now, I picked this spot because of privacy. The initial session can sometimes be a bit - destructive. That, and we have a bubble of protection here. Some types of demons can sense spirit energy, but while we’re here you’re safe.”

“But if I try this trick at home, I won’t be,” Tony said. 

“This ‘trick,’ as you call it, will allow you to protect yourself. But you have to learn it first and, yes, you’ll need to take into consideration the possibilities of who might notice should you choose to use it.”

“Great, this sounds super helpful,” Tony drawled. “So what is it?”

“Focus on your spirit energy.”

Tony laughed. “My what?”

“Spirit energy,” Coulson said, just as calm as before. “For someone who was brought back to life and given knowledge about the spiritual battle that keeps your species alive, you’re remarkably stubborn.”

Your species. Tony’s guts twisted. Right, he needed to protect the human race. Prevent the apocalypse. Coulson might look human but he wasn’t - for all Tony knew, Coulson was just trying to keep his job from being crazy stressful with ferrying too many dead humans.

“Fine, whatever,” Tony grumbled. “I focus on my…”

“Spiritual energy,” Coulson finished smoothly. “Reach down into yourself. You’ll find it waiting for you.”

Tony took a deep breath. He closed his eyes, because he thought that might help with this whole spiritual energy meditation thing he was supposed to be doing. Maybe he should hum. 

“Deep in yourself,” Coulson continued in a soft voice. “It won’t be much at first, but it’s there. A fiery energy in your core, waiting for you.”

Tony had no idea where to look. He wondered how long he needed to put up this farce before everyone realized he didn’t have any spiritual energy. Tony had intelligence, not some secret superpower hidden away.

“I can tell you’re not trying. I didn’t realize that after everything that has already happened, you’re still afraid to find out the truth.”

It was an obvious ploy, but it needled at Tony nonetheless. He wasn’t afraid, he just didn’t believe that he had this. Maybe other people did, but not him. He trusted what he could see and feel and smell. 

But fine, if Coulson wanted him to look and not find anything, then he would. 

Tony shifted his feet wider apart into a more comfortable stance. He kept his eyes closed and imagined going deep into himself. There would be power here, he chanted in his mind. Some sort of glowing, crackling energy connected to his spirit because Coulson believes he had this power - 

And then, there it was. Bright blue light sat in his chest, glowing and warm. 

“Holy fuck,” Tony whispered.

“I won’t say I told you so.”

“You just did.” Tony’s words came out more strangled than snarky. Even after everything Coulson had shown him, it was weird to know that he had spiritual power. 

“This energy is your defense. Other than having items of power of your own, it’s your best chance in standing against demons. That’s why we’re here, for you to learn how to control it. Now, draw it out.” 

Tony tried to coax the energy out, like it was a shy dog he wanted to come out and play. 

Nothing. 

“Any more tips?” Tony sighed and opened his eyes. He could still feel the energy humming in his chest if he thought about it.

“It’s different for every person,” Coulson replied. 

“I assume this is where the destructive part of the night comes in.” Tony tried again to draw the energy out of his chest, and nothing happened. 

“You are correct. Your energy, while having most of its effects on those of demonic origins, can also have a physical effect on humans. Not capable of killing an average person, but they would feel it. You’d especially have to be careful around those who are already injured, or near death. Children would be the least affected, unless they were ill, whereas the elderly -”

“Got it. No shooting up nursing homes.” Tony gritted his teeth and tried to expel the energy from his chest. 

Again, nothing. 

“I’ve seen some detectives use a spirit gun,” Coulson said. “They visualize their energy gathering on the tip of their finger and then pull the trigger to release. That is the most common.”

Tony wrinkled his nose at that expression, but he tried it. The energy moved to his right hand and his palm glowed with the blue light, where it rested just under the surface. 

He could easily imagine shooting it as a gun, but was that the best technique? A bullet was a great weapon, but it required accuracy. Not that Tony thought he wasn’t capable of that, but he was about to get thrown into the lion’s den of chasing down demons. He wanted to coax the odds into his favor. So really, what he wanted was something that would release - 

Tony turned his palm out, facing the trees, and thought _now_. 

A blast of energy left his hand, and it trailed blueish white across the clearing until it hit the trees on the far side. The trees groaned and collapsed, a whole pile of them, at the end. 

“Ha! I did it!” Tony cried out, leaping for joy. “Look at that, I did it! Let me do it again.”

Tony searched for the energy, but instead of being a nice tight warm ball in his chest, he only found scraps. 

“The more you use it, the more strength you’ll gain. For now, you’ll manage about one shot every day,” Coulson said. He stared out at the destruction on the far end of the clearing. “Very nice work. It took ages for the last detective I worked with. He needed to draw a bow and arrow, and I hadn’t seen that before. Your move is also unique. But very effective.”

“I wanted something broader than a bullet,” Tony admitted as he rubbed the palm of his right hand. It didn’t hurt or feel any different, but he couldn’t stop rubbing to be sure. 

“A smart plan,” Coulson accepted. “Congratulations, Mr. Stark. There’s hope for you yet.”

As far as praise went, it was mediocre. Still, Tony had to hide his smile from the compliment. 

Maybe he could do this after all. 

“It’s a little dumb that you drug me all the way out here just for that one shot,” Tony said as he followed Coulson back to the car. “We couldn’t have just tried that up in the air, or something?”

“You will not be doing that anywhere around Lola,” Coulson said severely. “And, the night isn’t over.”

Tony stopped, though Coulson kept walking. 

“It’s not?” Tony wasn’t one for curfews, but it was getting late and he still had that paper to finish. 

But, well, Rhodey was probably going to kill him for disappearing without a note anyway, so what was the point in hurrying back?

“Do you have any guesses on where you’d think demonic activity might be on the east coast?”

Tony sighed and trotted to catch up to Coulson. “New York?”

“New York City,” Coulson confirmed. “And, while you’re not ready to take any enemies on tonight, you will need to learn how to track them.”

“Great,” Tony groaned. 

He was definitely going to take a nap the rest of the way there, though.


End file.
